


Friends Are Nothing 'Til They Smoke Together

by mixterhodgins



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, F/F, First Kiss, Marijuana, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 19:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6624079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mixterhodgins/pseuds/mixterhodgins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Well, okay,” she said after a moment, clearly through internally debating it. She let go of Root’s hand and pushed in front of her, trampling down the underbrush. “But I get the first puff.” Root followed Sameen. She didn’t need to tell her co-counsellor where they were going. Through the forest beside the lake, there was an abandoned path, too grown over with poison ivy to bring kids down anymore, and on that path there was an empty boathouse. The boathouse was infamous for a reason that remained largely unspoken. Two summers ago, when Root was still in the leadership program, and Sameen was halfway across the country, two counsellors had been fired by the old camp director for sneaking off to the boathouse to kiss. Sameen clearly understood the connotation of being brought here in the dead of night, but Root wondered if she wanted anything illicit beyond Root’s messy joint.<br/>(or- Team Machine are summer camp counsellors, Root's a stoner, and Shaw regrets getting braces)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friends Are Nothing 'Til They Smoke Together

**Author's Note:**

> okay so first off i apologize for canadian spelling of counsellor i know it probably looks really wrong to american readers. second off as a camp leadership program graduate myself: DO NOT SMOKE POT IF YOU ARE A CAMP COUNSELLOR YOU WILL GET FIRED BECAUSE IF PARENTS FIND OUT THEY COULD SUE THE YMCA/GIRL GUIDES/WHOEVER, just, needing to get that out there  
> please leave a comment and tell me what you think, or if you want to see more from this universe! you can also check me out at lionelfusco.tumblr.com and feel free to request!! this fic is a gift for my friend madds, tumblr user grovesroot!

“ _ Twenty years on an iceberg, over the ocean wide, nothing to wear but pyjamas, nothing to do but slide,” _ Root sung, enthusiasm beaming from every pore of her body, waning sunlight reflecting off her braces. She shot a quick look at her co-counsellor, Sameen, whose own sliding hand motions looked much more lackluster than hers. A small frown settled in between Root’s eyebrows. “ _ The wind was cold and icy,” _ she sung along with the two dozen or so young girls sitting on benches in front of her, “ _ the frost began to bite!” _ Root sung as she pinched the soft part of Sameen’s thigh, flashing her an exaggerated smile. No smile had ever looked more pained than the one she watched Sameen force onto her face. “ _ I had to hug my polar bear to keep me warm at night!”  _  Root finished triumphantly, grappling Sameen in a hug which she weakly returned. The children on the benches around the campfire embraced each other, with sweet, gap-toothed smiles, ponytails and baseball caps hitting their friends in the faces as they swung to hug both girls on either side. Root felt her 19 year old heart soften, watching the childish squabbles that were already breaking out over who got hugged more than who. She did her best to suppress an excited giggle when Julia lifted an arm to knock over little Sandy for elbowing her in the stomach.

“Next verse, guys,” Sameen exclaimed in a commanding but gentle voice, regaining the attention of the kids in front of her. Julia lowered her arm. Sam Shaw might not be one for enthusiasm, but Root had to admit, as she watched her co-counsellor lead the kids through the silent movements of the next verse, she really was committed to making sure every girl in the camp had a positive experience. 

“ _...over the ocean wide, nothing to wear but pyjamas…”  _ Sameen and Root continued in unison, working their way through every verse until the entire song was only humming and hand motions. When their song was over, and the eight excitable campers who had been standing behind them on stage were seated on the benches behind the campfire, Root finally stopped trying to catch Sameen’s eye. Focusing her attention back on the crowd, it was starting to get dark outside. Mosquitos buzzed, and fireflies twinkled near the edge of the clearing. Their light mixed in with the sparks jumping from the fire that John and Zoe, the maintenance staff, were so dutifully tending. Nurse Harold, one hand on the camp dog’s furry neck, watched their hands poke and dance around the open flame with an expression of mild anxiety.

“For this next song,” Root began, sitting down on the edge of the stage and holding out her hands in front of her. Her gangly legs struggled to find a comfortable position. “We’d like to cool down for the night. Calm down. Chill out, you know? Please, girls, I’d like to ask you all to, instead of clapping, just do some snaps,” Root said as she demonstrated the action. A peppering of small clicks resounded back at her from the hands of her rapt audience. “It’s a quieter time now, all the squirrels have gone to bed, and we have to too, soon.” Root wiped an exaggerated tear away from her eye as Sameen sat down next to her. “We would also love to invite the counsellor of our  _ favourite _ rival cabin to the stage.”

“Yeah, Joss,” Sam encouraged, picking at the lint on her ratty sweatshirt, “get your butt up here.” The kids giggled appreciatively at Sameen’s choice of language, and Jocelyn did so, jogging to the stage with an expression of exaggerated harriedment. She flashed a charming smile at Root and Sam, and sat down in the space between them. 

“Rival cabins, now?” she said as the turned back to the audience, play-annoyance on her face again. Joss raised her eyebrows at Root and Sam’s flock, who were bouncing in their seats, still too-short legs kicking through the air. “Is that how it’s going to be?” she turned her look to Root, and for a second, Root was almost intimidated by the 18-year old first year counsellor. She giggled, and Sameen slapped her arm around both of them.

“Nah, Joss, we’re just joking,” Sameen said, her stage voice completely identical to any of her other voices. Root always thought it was funny, how dramatically she and her coworkers would change their voices to engage the kids between songs, when all Sam had to do was open her mouth and talk, and children flocked to her like moths to a porchlight. Root may have doubted the nearly-expressionless 5’2 transfer counsellor from another Girl Scout camp at first, but she had to admit that Sameen had a natural affinity with children, whether she realized it or not. “We don’t need rivals, considering our kids are going to kick butt at capture the flag tomorrow no matter what. Isn’t that right, girls?” A chorus of hoots rose up from cabin 8, and nurse Harold shot an unimpressed look at Sam. Whether she didn’t notice or didn’t care wasn’t obvious. 

“We’ll see about that,” Joss replied, sounding fully unimpressed. Her eyebrows were raised so high under her bangs that Root could no longer see them. “John, are you ready with that thing yet?” Joss asked, turning away from Root at last, the evening breeze wafting the smell of bug spray and sunscreen off her mosquito-bitten skin. John, who had quietly sat down a few feet to the left of the girls, was tuning a banjo. The instrument looked comically small in his hands, and Root had to fight down the instinct to tease him for it in front of her campers. John had been her classmate and sort-of friend since kindergarten, and though they were now both in their second years of college, the instinct to antagonize the gangly, awkward boy was still strong.

“Yup,” came his sedate reply, and he straightened his back, watching Joss for further instruction. Every member of staff knew that John had it bad for Joss. And Harold. And Zoe. Root and Sam had forty dollars in bets on who he’d realize he liked first. (Sam insisted it would be Harold: as the only two men on staff, the 20 year olds had their own bachelor’s pad behind the health centre together. Root had enough photos of John making doe-eyes at Joss from the kitchen or the maintenance cabinet to think otherwise.) 

“So, girls,” Joss said with an easy smile, putting her arm around Sam’s back in reciprocation, and the right one around Root’s for good measure. “You should already know this one, but if you don’t, that’s okay, just listen to us for the first verse, alright?” The campers nodded, their slightly grimy faces now lit solely by the warm orange campfire. Root noted with a sense of vindication that Zoe was doing a much better job of keeping it running now that Harold and John weren’t breathing down her shoulder. It was also a much nicer view for her, now that it was only Zoe’s feminine form crouching in front of her. “Alright?” Joss repeated. This time, the campers’ warbly voices echoed the word back at her. “Good,” she declared, and turned candidly to Sameen and John. “We doing this?”

“Heck yeah we’re doing this,” Sameen said looking Root dead in the eye, daring her to scold her for her language now. Root found herself smiling at Sam’s compulsive desire to test the rules, and rolled her eyes instead of reprimanding her. 

A few notes twanged out of John’s banjo, prompting the girls to break into song, slightly off-key, voices wavering on the low notes.

_ “Friends are nothing ‘til they sing together, _ ” Joss led, her voice much stronger than Root’s lispy or Sameen’s flat one- which isn’t to say that Root didn’t make a valiant effort. “ _ ‘Til they sing the whole night through, ‘til they sing the night away, ‘til they sing- _ ” Sameen’s voice dropped out of the sustained note at the end of the line with a breathless cough. Root and Joss simultaneously stifled their laughter, and brought the song to a close. “ _ Together, ‘til they sing.” _ Root didn’t miss the slightly put-out expression on Sam’s face as she caught her breath. 

Joss, Sameen, John, and Root led the campers through three more variations on the song. It was a pretty simple tune, just substituting other things that friends do in place of “sing”. When a child to young to understand the meaning recommended “sleep”, it took the staff members incredible power not to giggle. Joss, her eyebrows hidden by her bangs once again, suggested “camp” instead. 

Only an hour or so of tooth brushing and pyjama changing and wrangling the campers into bed later, and Root was ready for her break. At least, the camper wrangling was all on Sameen’s part. When it came time to put the kids to bed, Root found that it was much more effective for her to lie in her own bunk, and provide a good example for the rowdy girls. At least, that’s what she told Sameen.

“Hey, princess,” Sam whispered, throwing a balled-up shirt at the back of Root’s head. Root looked up from the nail stickers she was diligently applying to her emerald-green toenails. “I think Ayesha finally conked out. So let’s go.” 

Root nodded, putting the nail stickers back in an envelope and placing them on her shelf. Sam turned to leave, but Root held up a hand quickly. “Wait!” she hissed as forcefully as she could without waking the camper sleeping in the bunk bed above hers. “Just wait a second, Sameen,” Root continued, reaching into the foot of her sleeping bag and grasping for what she had stashed in it earlier. After a moment, she pulled out a flashlight, holding it aloft triumphantly. Sameen didn’t look impressed.

“I already  _ have  _ one, Root,” she said, holding her own LED light up by the strap. Root shook her head, flicking her hair over her shoulder. 

“It’s not just a flashlight, silly,” she laughed, walking past Sameen to the door of the cabin. “Come on, I’ll show you.” She held the door open for her co-counsellor, and began screwing the plastic lens off the top of the flashlight, walking towards the hill down the lakeside.

“I swear,” Sameen began, short legs struggling to keep with Root down the steep hill. “If this is one of those things that guys use to…” Root turned around triumphantly, interrupting her. She held out the hollow flashlight, proudly showing off her prize: a single, fat, messily rolled joint, a pack of gum with a strip torn out of the cardboard, and a baby blue lighter.

“I thought we might have a little fun, you and I,” Root continued as she walked backwards down the slope. Sameen stayed rooted to the ground in shock.

“We can’t do that  _ here _ !” Sam exclaimed, pointing through the woods in the direction they came. “The girls, Root. What if someone has a nightmare?” Root shrugged, reaching back up to grab her co-counsellor’s hand.

“We would be on break anyway, Sameen. They’ll go to the next cabin.” Root began making her way off the already treacherous path, pulling Sam through the thicket. She glanced back at Sam, and saw that she was licking over her own braces, staring thoughtfully at the hollow flashlight.

“Well, okay,” she said after a moment, clearly through internally debating it. She let go of Root’s hand and pushed in front of her, trampling down the underbrush. “But I get the first puff.” Root followed Sameen. She didn’t need to tell her co-counsellor where they were going. Through the forest beside the lake, there was an abandoned path, too grown over with poison ivy to bring kids down anymore, and on that path there was an empty boathouse. The boathouse was infamous for a reason that remained largely unspoken. Two summers ago, when Root was still in the leadership program, and Sameen was halfway across the country, two counsellors had been fired by the old camp director for sneaking off to the boathouse to kiss. Sameen clearly understood the connotation of being brought here in the dead of night, but Root wondered if she wanted anything illicit  _ beyond _ Root’s messy joint. Sameen snatched the flashlight out of roots hand, and fished out the pot and lighter, passing it back to her with only the mint gum inside. The floor was too rotten through to risk sitting on, the walls in the same condition, and so Sam had no other choice but to crowd Root’s personal space, joint clenched between her lips.

“Light me?” she demanded, voice muffled by her closed lips. Root flicked her hair over her shoulder, and tried not to think about the spider webs she’d probably thrown it into. She took the lighter out of Sameen’s hand and flicked it once, twice, before a flame grew. She hesitated before holding it to the joint. “I know how to do this, Root,” Sameen said impatiently, and Root got the giddy feeling that she really didn’t. Crouching to Sameen’s height, she brought the flame to the tip of the joint, holding for a few seconds. Sameen closed her eyes, inhaling deeply and pinching the joint out of her mouth. Root watched her angular face squish into an uncomfortable position.

“I thought you knew how to-” Root started, but was quickly interrupted by Sameen’s hacking cough, blowing smoke directly into her face. “Sam!” Root yelped, pushing the shorter girl away as she stood up. She grabbed the burning joint of Sameen’s hand, bringing it to her lips and inhaling deeply. Pulling the joint away, she held the smoke in her lungs, and then gracefully exhaled towards the open door of the boathouse.

“No need to show off,” Sam grumbled, taking the pot back. This time, she managed to keep it down for longer, though her exhale still lacked Root’s grace. They continued that way for another five minutes, each pass of the joint bringing them closer together. Root didn’t fail to notice when Sameen put her hand on the small of her back while passing the joint, and didn’t take it away after. The world felt slow, gentle, and fuzzy to Root. Every movement she made felt sustained, like she could feel each joint in her body calculating which laws of physics to apply to themselves. She looked down at Sameen, giggling at what she saw.

“Sam,” she said, plucking the burning roach out of Sameen’s small hands and dropping it between the floorboards of the decrepit building. Sam stared at her indignantly. “You were smoking the filter,” Root explained, opening her flashlight with clumsy hands. Slipping the lighter into it, she unfolded the pack of gum. One stick left. “Sorry, Sam-” 

Before she could process what had happened, Sameen’s tiny hand was grabbing the piece out of the wrapper and stuffing it into her mouth. Root yelled, probably a little louder than she should have considering how the sound echoed over the still lake.

“You aren’t supposed to chew that, Sameen!” she exclaimed, mouth stretched into an exaggerated expression of shock. “Your braces!” Root looked back at the pack of gum, as if her logic would make the chewed piece come back to her.

“You have them too,” Sam offered, chewing the gum loudly. Root looked between her and the flashlight once more before finally screwing the lens back on. 

“But that was  _ mine _ ,” she whined. Root knew she was being ridiculous, and the snarky smile on Sameen’s face did nothing but confirm it, but she couldn’t control her words. She had been looking forwards to that gum.

“You can have it,” Sameen said, poking Root in the ribs and opening her mouth wide. The white chewing gum sat on her tongue like a deformed pearl in a shell. Root was entranced by it, and the tongue it sat on. Without really noticing, she started to lean in. Sameen snapped her mouth closed. 

“Uh, no way,” Root said, looking away from Sameen in shame. She couldn’t read the expression on her co-counsellor’s face, but she had a sneaking suspicion that Sam had known what she was about to do. Sameen’s finger poked at her ribs again.

“Were you actually going to eat nasty chewed up gum out of my mouth, Root?” Sam, ever delicate, snorted. 

“Was not-”

“You totally were!” Sameen exclaimed with a little jump, rocking the foundation of the boathouse. Root heard a wet sound, and looked over to see Sam spitting out the gum on the mossy floor. She exclaimed in protest. “Now neither of us can have it,” Sameen explained, opening her posture to Root with a small turn. “But I think I have something better.” If Sameen was a hammer of subtlety sober, she was a wrecking ball stoned. Root stared at her lips, glossy and blue-tinged by the reflection off the water. Sameen’s tongue darted out, licking them.

“Don’t tease me, Sameen,” Root said after a moment’s reflection, turning to leave the boathouse. Sameen’s hand was on her elbow before she could move a step.

“No, like, Root, I actually mean it,” Sam explained quickly, her earlier bluster gone. Root turned back to her coworker, who was looking up at her like a cat asking for scratches. “Like, please kiss me.”

“I can?” Root clarified, awkwardly putting her hand on Sameen’s neck, then moving it to the back of her head. Sameen nodded.

“Yeah, Root, do it.” Root was aware that this was probably the least romantic kiss she’d ever been invited into, but she couldn’t blame Sameen. The pot was making it hard for her to find her words as well. She stopped trying, leaning down to press her lips to Sameen’s. Sam met her happily, immediately pressing her tongue against Root’s lips eagerly. Root let her in with a happy sigh, rubbing the shaved nape of Sameen’s hair. The kiss was minty, not unexpectedly, and slow. Root could feel the tingling travel from Sam’s tongue down her own body, waking up every cell in her body. She felt like she was vibrating, or being run through a microwave. Sameen turned her head against Root’s- at least, she tried to, but the motion wouldn’t complete. In confusion, Root tried to pull away, and found Sameen’s head pulled forwards towards her by the metal attached to both of their mouths.

“Sam, did we…?” Root asked, her high mind having trouble understanding the situation she had found herself in. She gave another tug, and both she and the woman attached to her face winced in pain. 

“Get our fucking braces stuck together?” Sam asked, laughing bitterly into Root’s mouth. “It looks like we did, Root. Looks like we sure did.” Root opened her eyes and found Sameen staring into hers, painful laughter wrinkling her face. Root tugged back one more time in horror, and Sameen began to laugh harder. “Looks like nurse Harold has his work cut out for him,” she choked out, doing her best to lead them both to the door of the boathouse. Root, bent in half to walk on her co-counsellor’s level, finally broke out in laughter, steadying herself on Sam’s shoulder. 

“He wouldn’t tell the director, right?” Root asked ten minutes into their crouched, bumbling, very slow journey to the health centre, still stifling her laughter. 

“Doubt it. He’d have more trouble explaining it than us,” Sam offered. Root was giddy with the possibility of not only getting away with smoking pot with Sameen Shaw, but kissing her, as well. Sameen seemed to be having the same train of thought. “Next time,” she declared in a dark whisper, the porchlight of the health clinic approaching on the horizon. “We’re waxing them first.”

“Yes ma’am,” Root replied, trying to keep the smile off her face. She was happier than anything to know that Sameen wanted there to be a next time, too. “Next time.”


End file.
